How Big Data Analytics Is Boosting Profits For The Restaurant Industry

Big data essentially refers to the huge amount of data that is continually being generated by a restaurant’s software solutions. This data offers you powerful and applicable insights that can equip your restaurant to make critical business decisions. Armed with these relevant insights you can bring about improvements in all facets from staff training, marketing campaigns, restaurant policies as well as menus.

For instance, analyzing sales data, where you observe the revenue generated per server, you will be able to figure out staffing issues that are impacting your restaurant’s profits.

Suppose one of your servers fetches a uniform amount of revenue throughout the week, yet only at particular hours there is lowered revenue, Big data strategy consulting will enable you to understand where the losses are occurring and during which time durations you would benefit from additional resources.

Similarly, you can extract data analysis from your CRM to gauge front-of-house insights like, why particular items are sold more than others, which customers placed which orders and how much quantity was ordered, and so on. These insights can be used to enhance your menu.

In addition, you can receive an insight into what menu categories, from beverages entrées, appetizers to side items are most ordered. You can focus your restaurant marketing around the popular items to get more engagement.

Menu Decisions

Based on valuable insights from your restaurant data analytics you can decide which items need to be re-introduced, which dishes to keep and which to discard as well as which meals should have discounts and promotions.

For instance, if there are a lot of orders for a particular dish, but you observe that no re-orders have come for it; you can probe deeper to find out the cause.

Restaurant businesses with a competitive edge make use of analytics solutions in a variety of ways, including:

1. Operations enhancement

2. Table turnover optimization

3. Customer profiling

4. Lifetime value and repeat guests trends

5. Sales forecasting

Labor Expenses

Labor ranks as one of the highest expense areas while running a restaurant, thus is it critical to calculate your labor cost Vs your total sales. Possessing the required analytics will allow you to learn which are the slower shifts and seasons and then you cut costs by hiring fewer resources in that span of time.

Loyalty Programs

Big Data analytics allows you to figure out the most ideal way to reward your loyal customers.

For instance, suppose a particular bunch of guests ‘checks-in’ and ‘tags’ your restaurant on social media each and every time they visit your restaurant, you would be wise to send them a reward for their loyalty using a social media site.

Guest Experience

Data like demographics, reservation habits, and order preferences give you the potential to customize the dining experience of your guests.

You can leverage your restaurant CRM’s historical data to study past and current trends and use that information to build customer profiles, listen to and improve relationships with your diners, and develop strategies for the future.